The New York State prosecutor has asked a judge to compel one of Donald Trump’s sons, Eric Trump, to testify under oath in an investigation into the real estate properties of the family business, she said Monday in a statement.
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Eric Trump, who took over the reins of the Trump Organization with his brother Donald Junior after the New York magnate left for the White House in early 2017, was to be questioned by his services under oath in July, according to prosecutor Letitia James.
But “after having initially accepted this interview, he now refuses to come”, says the Democrat.
More generally, even if the Trump Organization says it wants to “cooperate” in the investigation, “it refuses to provide the documents (requested), citing invalid reasons”, she added.
She therefore formally asked a New York State judge to require Eric Trump to testify and the Trump Organization to provide documents regarding several real estate assets of the family holding company, including a building on Wall Street and the Trump International Hotel in Chicago.
This information, which appeared as the Republican convention begins this Monday, which must formally induct Donald Trump as a candidate for re-election in November – with an intervention by Eric Trump scheduled for Tuesday – add to the multiple legal fronts concerning Donald Trump and his affairs.
The prosecutor specifies that she opened this investigation in 2019, after Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen – since convicted – testified in front of the United States Congress that the tycoon had overvalued or undervalued some of his real estate to obtain loans or tax cuts.
The president is also ordered to provide eight years of accounting records, as part of another investigation led by Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance, also a Democrat.
Despite an unfavorable ruling against the president rendered on the case by the US Supreme Court in July, his lawyers continue to fight in court to avoid having to hand over these documents, and the case could again end up in the Federal Supreme Court.
Eric Trump, 36, is the third of Trump children born from the New York mogul’s first marriage to Ivana Trump.
Although he and his brother have been appointed to head the Trump Organization, it is Eric, officially executive vice-president, who seems most involved in the day-to-day running of the family business.